Trials of Bullets and Shuriken
by TheVulpineHero1
Summary: 25 themes on Yuffentine. Fluffy, mostly.


**1st Trial: Robbed**

He can deal with her mischief, or her liveliness. He can deal with her verbal wars, her ninja pride and her cruel streak. But, in her presence, he always feels like he's missing something.

Usually, his wallet.

**2nd Trial: Harassment**

She sticks with him, night and day. In some ways, it's a form of flattery, and he finds it useful. If nothing else, she helps him to talk to other people. In other ways, it's harassment, and troubles him greatly. The greatest of these ways is how she's constantly running her fingers down his legs, trying to get his leather trousers to squeak.

**3rd Trial: The Scenic Route**

When Tifa suggest that they take the scenic route, it usually means going to higher ground and surveying. When Cloud suggests taking the scenic route, it usually means getting very lost. And yet, as she stomps around the 'scenic' Gongaga jungle with only a gunman for company, Yuffie can't help but enjoy herself.

**4th Trial: Alley**

Alleys are places to avoid. If one must go through them, one goes through them quickly, not stopping for any reason. So why are they standing still, he wonders? Her fingers work their magic and another of his belts slithers to the ground. Now he remembers.

**5th Trial: For Peanuts**

Unlike in many establishments, Tifa's bar food is pristinely kept. Which is why Yuffie insists on drinking elsewhere.

"You gotta kiss me if I eat these peanuts." she says, pointing to a bowl that Vincent is only vaguely sure isn't alive.

"Ridiculous." he huffs.

Thirty seconds later, and there's not a trace of the peanuts left. Yuffie grins at him, and he catches a whiff of rotten nuts on her breath. He groans, and gets ready for a harrowing experience.

**6th Trial: Pipe**

Why his arm is covered in metal is something no one understands. Some think it's armour, some think it hides a genetic mutation, and yet others think it's a prosthetic. Yuffie thinks it's a chore, especially as she now has to scour every nook and cranny with a pipe cleaner. She grumbles incessantly.

"Now, Yuffie. What is it you keep saying to me? 'A bet's a bet', correct?" he murmurs, before drinking Yuffie's home-made tea. He knows that he'll pay for this. But right now he doesn't care.

**7th Trial: Coffee**

He can't get up in the morning without a healthy dose of coffee. Or, rather, he thinks he can't. In truth, Yuffie has been switching his cheapo instant-coffee with decaffeinated for a month now. But today, as she browses the hot drinks aisle, she selects the one with the most caffeine possible. She doesn't know what will happen. But she knows it'll be fun.

**8th Trial: Interest**

As a special favour for her best friend, Yuffie agrees to set up an online web page for Vincent. As a reward for her hard work, she takes the privilege of listing whips, leather, and burly men as interests. She wishes she were one of his interests, too.

**9th Trial: Admiration**

Although he thinks she's overconfident, Vincent loves Yuffie for her energy, stubbornness and skill as a ninja. Which is a coincidence, because those are the reasons that Yuffie loves herself, too.

**10th Trial: No Gain**

How exactly did this happen? What kind of convoluted series of events could possibly result in Vincent jogging along the highway with Yuffie sitting resolutely on his shoulders?

"No pain, no gain, Vince. You got awfully out of shape when you were mouldering in your coffin, y'know that?"

**11th Trial: Redemption**

She's a thief. She knows it. And now, they're all holding it against her. She tries and tries to make up for it, with ever more incredible stunts, and ever more dangerous lunges in battle. As a ninja, she'll expend herself to get back her pride. As she lies, bleeding, wishing she hadn't been quite so reckless when confronting the last monster, Vincent watches with a wary eye. In his heart of hearts, he believes that redemption is futile. But seeing her efforts, he just can't bring himself to tell her so.

**12th Trial: Probation**

Yuffie is on lifelong probation, and it's Vincent's mission to enforce it. Actually, it's a self-appointed mission. But he could _never_ allow her to drive a real car after seeing her wilfully run over pedestrians on her new driving game. It'd probably be a worse crime than letting Hojo create Sephiroth.

"Hey, Vince! I hit a policeman! Two hundred points!"

Replace 'probably' with 'definitely'.

**13th Trial: Inn**

"Vincent, can I share your room tonight?" she asks, her pillow in hand.

"What? Why? I thought you were bunking with Tifa." he mutters. Yuffie rubs her toe on the floor.

"She's having...passionate dreams." she whispers, a blush burning in her cheeks. Vincent sighs and nods, shifting so she can walk through the doorway.

"Thanks, Vince." she smiles. The smiles holds, then slowly edges towards a grin, morphing seamlessly into a smirk.

He sees it, and realises he's made a mistake mere milliseconds before she smashes him in the face with her pillow.

**14th Trial: Ledge**

A ledge is a ninja's best friend. And today, Yuffie is using the ninja's best friend to avoid Barret, who's just not tall enough to reach her, or agile enough to climb up to get her. After all, it wasn't HER fault that she tipped the chilli-sauce in his strawberry ice cream. It just kinda happened. Vincent watches, from his seat near the picnic basket, and slowly tries Yuffie's ice-cream catastrophe. It's better than he thought it would be. Not by much, though.

**15th Trial: Peas In A Pod**

"You'd better be wearing boxers under there, mister." she hisses, squishing herself into his sleeping bag. "It's way too cold here to sleep by myself."

It _is_ chilly in the Glacier, he thinks. But he's not quite sure where to put his arms.

"Hey, bub. Don't think this changes anything. Cloud and Tifa are already sharing, so that means it's between you, Barret, Red and Cid. And those are options I don't even wanna consider." she says into his chest. It may be several degrees under tonight, but that doesn't stop a bean of nervous sweat from dripping down his forehead.

**16th Trial: Chest**

Chest and Yuffie are words that should generally not be mentioned in the same sentence. It's not because Yuffie's insecure about it- of course it isn't. It's just that every guy she meets is a sexist pig and every woman she meets is jealous of her awesome fighting skills. (She cautiously ignores the fact that Tifa exists.) Interestingly, Vincent isn't at all concerned by her chest, or lack thereof.

He puts it down to chivalry and values. She puts it down to him secretly being a leg man.

**17th Trial: Chimes**

For anyone versed in the ways of the world, chimes are a very bad sound. The number one caused for the occurrence of chimes is the announcement telling you that you've missed the train.

She sits on a bench, pouting and mourning for the train they would have been able to catch if she hadn't spent so much time buying delicious train-station candy. He sits beside her, and takes from his traveller's bag a novel and a magazine, prepared for just such an occasion. He knows her better than she knows herself sometimes.

**18th Trial: Longing**

What Yuffie Kisaragi wants, Yuffie Kisaragi gets. This is an excellent rule of thumb for the rest of the world to work by. The problem, of course, is that Vincent Valentine is not the rest of the world. And they just don't have room for a pet chocobo in the house.

**19th Trial: Disgust**

She secretly hates it when he makes her tea in the morning. He makes it leaves the teabag in for five minutes, then adds a drop of milk and forgets the sugar. And somehow expects her to like it. Just because she likes her men to be dark and strong doesn't mean she likes her tea that way.

**20th Trial: The Harder They Fall**

In retrospect, getting Barret to help with moving their furniture wasn't a great idea. The man only has one real arm, for goodness' sake. And it really doesn't matter that he's built like a bear, it's still a bit much for him to carry an entire sofa up the stairs by himself. And, Vincent reflects in the hospital waiting room, a little stupid of Yuffie to be at the foot of the stairs whilst he was doing it.

**21st Trial: Teamwork**

Despite being almost inseparable, they don't work well together. She prefers to do things with shock value and the element of surprise, whereas he prefers to do the job with sophisticated efficiency and grace. And so it came to pass that, on Cloud's birthday, Vincent bought him a brushed aluminium wristwatch. And Yuffie painted it pink.

**22nd Trial: The Blues**

Yuffie often wonders (usually on rainy days when she can't be terrorising the outside world) what would have happened if they hadn't met. She assumes that she'd have gone on to be an amazing ninja princess of Wutai, but that she'd eventually choke under the responsibilities and fall into a deep depression.

She thinks that Vincent would have awoken from his coffin to become a completely bitchin' saxophonist, until he overdosed on drink, drugs or women, and ended up in a coffin. Not much change there, then.

**23rd Trial: Mountain**

Yuffie grew up surrounded by mountains. At times, her very life has revolved around those mysterious, sacred peaks. She sees mountains as forbidding, dark and powerful.

Vincent met his 'first death' surrounded by the mountains of Nibel. He was also offered the chance of redemption by one of Nibel's sons. He has grown to see them as a symbol of hope and rebirth.

They identify each other with mountains, someone who raises them higher than they can become themselves. It's strange, really. It isn't often that you see mountains standing on each other's shoulders.

**24th Trial: Theatre**

"The essence of theatre is exaggeration."

He forgets who said it. Maybe no one ever did. But he understands the sentiment. The masks the actors wear are ghastly disfigurements of real expressions, stretched and contorted into something more. Their gestures are wild yet simple, and their voices drip with emotion that, under normal circumstances, would be repressed or even absent. It's like life, condensed and concentrated until it leaves a foul taste in his mouth.

He thinks life and people are more subtle, but can't for the life of him justify the view. For him, life is wrapped up in a girl called Yuffie. And she's nothing if not a living hyperbole.

**25th Trial: Lead Balloon**

A lead balloon will never fly. Mainly because lead is heavy. Simple physics.

In some ways, he finds it an accurate if somewhat contrived metaphor for his own heart. Something so weighed down by sin cannot ever hope to reach the heights of normal human emotion. It's simple logic.

She too thinks that a lead balloon is an accurate metaphor for his heart. Because, unlike him, she knows that a lead balloon will float, if you could only make it big enough. Impossible is not absolute.

And so she stands, with a metaphorical bicycle pump attached to his metaphorical heart, making it bigger pump by metaphorical pump.

Actually, she's just kissing him. She can't be bothered with metaphors, after all.

* * *

A/N: Okay...Well, I'm going to put this up as one of the tribute oneshots for Yuffentine ABC...despite the fact that I really, really am _not_ pleased with it. I just didn't feel it worked as well as some of my other stuff. Oh well. Experiments and bad days often go together.

In regards to Lead Balloon, a lead balloon _will_ float if you make it big enough; however, it has to be very large indeed. Look up the Mythbusters Lead Balloon experiment for more details.


End file.
